


Fairytale Of New York

by chicafrom3



Category: Smash (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-10
Updated: 2014-12-10
Packaged: 2018-02-28 23:39:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2751449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chicafrom3/pseuds/chicafrom3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kyle and Jimmy's first Christmas as roommates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fairytale Of New York

**Author's Note:**

  * For [novelized](https://archiveofourown.org/users/novelized/gifts).



The text came halfway through Jimmy's shift at the restaurant. He was tired, sore, and annoyed, and the buzzing of his phone in his pocket did nothing to improve his mood. When he had finally had a moment to himself — the goddamn holiday rush was going to run him off his feet, idiot tourists who should've stayed in frigging Iowa instead of coming here to hassle him because their water was too warm — he checked it.

>Don't come home after work, ok?  
>Just find someplace to hangout or something

Jimmy had really been looking forward to going home, crashing on the couch, and working his way through a six-pack of beer. Or some pot. Or something from the stash Kyle didn't know the details of. Something that would help him forget this shitty day.

>y cant i just go home

The answer came fifteen minutes later, while he was hauling up another case of wine from the basement. At the top of the stairs he set the case down and pulled out his phone.

>Because. REASONS.

It was an extremely _Kyle_ response, which almost but not quite took the edge off Jimmy's irritation.

>r u getting laid

This time the answer came before he could even put his phone back into his pocket.

>NO  
>JUST DON'T COME HOME  
>I'll text you when it's ok

Jimmy snorted and turned his phone off before taking the wine to the bar. Kyle was so totally getting laid.

* * *

When his endless and infuriating shift finally ended, all Jimmy wanted to do was go home. For a moment he was tempted; it wasn't like he'd give Kyle's new guy a hard time (well ... not _much_ of one) and it was as much his apartment as it was Kyle's.

Except not really — Kyle paid most of the rent — and it wasn't like Kyle asked for privacy very often, or brought guys home more than once in a blue moon.

He went to a coffee shop and bought an espresso instead. _See, Kyle, I can be a good roommate sometimes._ He would've gone to a bar, but he knew how much he spent on beer; his card wasn't gonna cover it until next paycheck.

The coffee shop was playing a Christmas mixtape, which was irritating (Jimmy considered the vast majority of Christmas music to be badly-written overly-sentimental garbage, and if he had to hear Madonna whine her way through "Santa Baby" one more time he was going to kill someone) but did serve as a reminder that he still needed to figure out a present for Kyle. He couldn't afford much, but he also couldn't afford to blow things with the best friend he'd ever had; it was their first Christmas as roommates and he had to get something cool enough to make Kyle feel appreciated. Which he totally was. Even if Jimmy was generally shit at expressing it.

When Kyle finally texted him to let him know it was okay to come home, the Pogues were playing on the sound system. Jimmy whistled along to the song as he gathered up his things, and then stopped and laughed out loud as the perfect idea hit him in the voice of Kirsty MacColl.

* * *

Kyle was jittery and secretive for the next couple days, but Jimmy figured he just didn't want to introduce his new boyfriend yet. Maybe the guy was ugly, or weird, or a hipster, or had bad taste in music, or maybe Kyle just wanted to keep this to himself for now. Anyway it made it easier for Jimmy to find time to slip away and work on his present for Kyle. Which Kyle was going to _love_. It was going to earn him the "greatest roommate and best friend" title for at least the next year, unless he screwed things up somehow two months down the line, which was totally possible.

But that wasn't the point. While Kyle snuck around with his hopefully-not-unattractive mystery boy, Jimmy was scheming. For a good cause, this time.

There were forty Broadway theaters in New York. He wasn't sure exactly how many Off-Broadway theaters there were, but there were a lot; he'd tried to count them but lost interest partway through the list. He wasn't even bothering with Off-Off-Broadway. That way lay madness.

Not all of the theaters had currently-running shows, which made things slightly easier. He could drop in on the empty ones whenever he had a chance. The ones where shows were running, he had to schedule his visits around their performances; research when shows started, when they ended, when the actors were generally hitting the stage door.

This was way more work than he'd be willing to do for anyone but Kyle.

Thank God for Broadway.com, because if he had to research all that individually it'd be too much to ask, even for Kyle's sake.

* * *

"You know what our musical needs?"

Kyle didn't look up from the notebook he was doodling in. "A producer? A director? A cast? A finished script?"

"A song about Santa Fe." Jimmy drummed his fingers on the bar top, making up a melody as he went. The restaurant was all but empty, but they still couldn't close until it was actually empty. "Think about it, we've got a musical about a bunch of miserable young adults in New York but we don't have an I Want song about moving to Santa Fe."

That got a laugh out of Kyle. "You're right. What have we been thinking, leaving that out? We'll never be taken seriously as musical writers without a song about Santa Fe."

"Exactly. So I was thinking about it, and it really only makes sense for it to be a Jesse song, right? After Amanda ditches him. Daydreaming about bailing on New York for Santa Fe, because ... I dunno, because everyone in New York dreams about moving to Santa Fe."

"Or he watched Newsies too many times on the Disney channel."

"Yeah, exactly. And then at the end of the song he's just like, nahh, screw it, I'd hate living in New Mexico."

"''Cause he'd miss New York before he could unpack,'" Kyle sang, disrupting the sole customer on the other side of the room, and Jimmy laughed for a long time.

* * *

Jimmy hated Christmas.

It wasn't just the terrible Christmas music that played everywhere, although that was definitely a factor. It was also the greenery that was shoved into every available space regardless of the fact that New York was by nature a city of concrete and steel, and the Salvation Army Santas on street corners collecting money for the homeless but only the right kind of homeless, and stores trying desperately to sell as much decorative but useless junk and overpriced but useless presents as they possibly could while your wallet happened to be out, and the way it started earlier and earlier every year until you couldn't even get past Halloween without seeing Christmas stuff everywhere. It all pissed him off.

Kyle, on the other hand, loved Christmas. He always had. He was like the Christmas fairy or something.

("If you ever call me that again I'll strangle you with a tacky Christmas sweater," Kyle had said the one and only time Jimmy expressed that thought out loud.)

But the point was, Kyle loved shitty Christmas carols sung by autotuned pop singers, and donating money they couldn't really spare to various charities, and windowshopping in department stores where they couldn't afford to buy anything, and that was the reason why their apartment was decked to the nines with plastic greenery, a fake and overdecorated Christmas tree, and so many strings of red and green LED lights that they'd run out of available outlets to plug them into. There was even an inflatable Santa sitting on top of the TV, which Jimmy couldn't resist hitting every time he passed it, although he'd yet to do any actual damage.

It was also the reason why Jimmy was spending one of his rare evenings off in the overcrowded hell that was Rockefeller Center to attend the tree lighting.

Kyle was wearing a tacky Christmas sweater with a reindeer on the front and had bought them each an overpriced hot chocolate. He was practically bouncing. It was so adorable it was sickening.

"This is my favorite time of year," Kyle informed him, obviously reading the glower on Jimmy's face correctly.

"I know," Jimmy said. "I just don't get why that means I have to do all this shit with you. Why not drag your boyfriend here instead?"

"I told you I don't have a boyfriend."

"I told you I don't believe you."

Kyle grinned and hugged him, which probably would've gotten anyone else hit. "I'd rather do this with you anyway."

Jimmy rolled his eyes and did not hug him back. Much. But he didn't complain anymore, and when the tree was finally lit, he wasn't watching it; he wasn't even watching all the people around them to keep an eye out for pickpockets or an excuse to leave; he was watching the way Kyle glowed.

* * *

As Christmas drew closer, scheming got more difficult.

The only real problem was that Jimmy and Kyle worked together, they lived together, they hung out together, they essentially spent all of their time together, and there were only so many ways to say "I think I need a little alone time" before Kyle started looking at him sideways, clearly wondering if he was meeting with his dealer.

Which he was not.

He was tempted, sometimes, sure, but so far he was being good. And he'd thought he'd earned a little faith from Kyle.

Of course, given all the times he'd screwed up in the past, maybe Kyle was right not to have much faith in him.

But whatever. He wasn't going to say "I need to spend the evening somewhere you're not because I'm working on your Christmas present", because that would just completely ruin the element of surprise. So he kept making up excuses and Kyle kept believing them a little bit less each time.

At least Kyle appeared to still be hooking up with his still-as-yet-unidentified mystery man, although the frequency of those texts and pointed reminders had decreased. Jimmy guessed the honeymoon period had worn off. That was fast. It had still taken longer than it usually took for the honeymoon period to wear off of Jimmy's relationships, admittedly, but that wasn't the point; Kyle usually stayed in the starry-eyed stage a little longer. Maybe this guy wasn't so great after all.

Aside from the whole distracting-Kyle-from-Jimmy's-shenanigans thing, of course.

When (or at this point, _if_ ) Kyle ever introduced them, Jimmy was totally going to thank the dude for keeping Kyle's attention elsewhere for at least a little while, because this present was going to be kickass but only if he preserved the element of surprise.

He'd even gotten permission from their boss to hide the steadily-growing collection of autographed Playbills, programs, and photographs in a corner of the storage room Kyle never had reason to go into.

It was a good thing Kyle was so likeable because he'd never have gotten permission to do that for his own benefit.

* * *

They got paid extra to stick around after their shift one night and decorate the restaurant. Jimmy was tempted to blow it off and leave the work to Kyle, but bonus cash was bonus cash, and anyway he'd feel bad about sticking Kyle with all of that.

Kyle put on a playlist of Broadway performers singing Christmas carols while they worked. Jimmy made it through two and a half songs before switching to a classic rock playlist of his own.

"Aw, come on," Kyle protested. "At least try to get in the spirit, Jimmy."

"I'm in the spirit," Jimmy said, and held up a cardboard angel. "Woo, Christmas."

Kyle threw a tattered Santa hat at him. "It's the most wonderful time of year."

"Pretty sure that's Sports Illustrated's swimsuit edition season."

"You're a horrible human being."

"Thank you," Jimmy said, but to humor him he put on the Santa hat. It sat awkwardly on his head and the bobble at the end kept flopping in his face regardless of how he arranged it.

Kyle beamed at him, whipped out his phone, and snapped a picture. "This is so going on Facebook."

"I will kill you."

"Maybe Twitter too."

"Kyle Bishop — "

"I bet it'll go viral."

Jimmy yanked the hat off. See what kind of payment he got for trying to play along.

* * *

It snowed three days before Christmas, and Kyle was like a little kid in a candy store.

"We should build a snowman," he suggested on the walk to work the day after it snowed.

Jimmy looked around, at the sidewalks covered in slushy gray snow, and said, "Are you joking me?"

"No way. A snowman. We could go to the park or something. We could make snow angels!"

"I am definitely not making snow angels with you."

As they passed a storefront, Kyle reached out and scooped up a handful of snow from the windowsill. Jimmy recognized the familiar movement and timed his response perfectly; as Kyle went to dump the snow down his shirt, Jimmy ducked, twisted around, and managed to rebound the snow back into Kyle's face. Kyle burst out laughing.

"Definitely no snow angels," Jimmy repeated, and then relented a little and said, "Maybe a snowman."

"Yesss. I knew you'd come around to my clearly superior plan."

"One snowman. One. Max."

"We'll see," Kyle said, threading his arm through Jimmy's.

* * *

By Christmas Eve, Jimmy was second-guessing the hell out of his great idea for Kyle's present. Maybe Kirsty had misled him after all. Or maybe he'd just misinterpreted her; after all, things had ended pretty badly for the duo in the song, right?

It wasn't too late to avoid giving it to Kyle. He'd bought a few smaller — and less creative — presents to go under the tree, so Kyle wouldn't guess what his big present was; a couple DVDs of Broadway shows, an iTunes gift card, a new notebook. He could always pretend those were the only gifts he'd ever intended to give. Right?

On the other hand that was a pretty shitty way to ring in their first Christmas as roommates. And maybe Kyle really would love it. Maybe it wasn't a completely terrible idea. Maybe —

Jimmy kept going back and forth, and it was driving him crazy, and Christmas was still a day away.

There were a bunch of Christmas movies on TV, unsurprisingly, so Kyle was marathoning his way through _It's A Wonderful Life_ and _Miracle On 34th Street_ and _Elf_ and whatever else was on while Jimmy stewed with his indecision and they both worked their way through the tin of fudge Kyle's mom had sent them and the cookies Kyle had picked up from an uptown bakery.

"Did you go there on a date with your new boyfriend?" Jimmy asked. The cookies were really good. Not as good as the fudge, but not everyone could bake like Kyle's mom.

"I told you," Kyle said, not looking away from the TV, "I don't have a new boyfriend. I wish I had a new boyfriend. That's what you should've gotten me for Christmas."

"Laid?"

"Exactly."

Jimmy slung an arm around his shoulders and leered at him. "Not too late for that to be your present."

Kyle grimaced, clearly trying not to crack up. "Somehow I imagined this moment to be a little more ... "

"Romantic?"

"Cheesy."

"I should've gotten the rose petals."

"And champagne," Kyle said. "I'm not cheap, you know."

"Definitely not cheap," Jimmy agreed. "A little bit easy."

"Well. Can't argue with that."

* * *

Jimmy woke up the next morning to discover that the door to his bedroom had been barricaded from the outside and there was a box of Cap'n Crunch and a bottle of Coke sitting on his dresser with a note.

> Will let you out when I'm ready for you. Merry Christmas! - Santa Kyle

If he put his ear to the door he could hear low voices, one of them Kyle, and something heavy being dragged around.

"Hey!" he yelled through the door. "Don't let your new boyfriend leave before you introduce me to him!"

The dragging sound stopped for a moment and the unidentifiable voice said something ending with a rising inflection. Kyle responded, sounding dismissive, and the dragging sound resumed.

Jimmy grinned and settled in to eat his cereal while putting the finishing touches on Kyle's present.

* * *

He'd fallen asleep by the time Kyle unbarricaded his door. "Well?"

Yawning, Jimmy dragged himself to his feet and followed him out, keeping the wrapped book half-hidden behind his back even though he was pretty sure Kyle had seen it by now. "So? Where's your guy?"

"I'm really not joking when I say I don't have a boyfriend."

"Yeah, but I don't — " Jimmy stopped dead.

There, in a corner of the main room that had last night been occupied by a bookcase crammed with Kyle's script collection and several cardboard boxes they'd never gotten around to unpacking, was a piano.

An actual, real life piano.

Kyle was grinning at him.

"That's a piano," Jimmy said finally, despite the complete idiocy of the remark.

"No duh, Captain Obvious. Merry Christmas!"

"It's ... " Jimmy stepped close to it, putting aside Kyle's present for the moment so he could investigate more closely. It was ... it was ... "It's a piece of shit."

He could practically hear Kyle's eyes rolling. "Do you have any idea how much a piano costs? Even a really cheap used piano? Fine, jackass, if you don't like it I'll take it back and get my money back — "

"Hey! I didn't say I don't like it." He rested his hands briefly on the keys and let himself imagine coming home from work to sit down right here and write or play or just experiment —

He turned around, wrapped Kyle up in the tightest hug he was capable of, and buried his face in Kyle's neck.

Kyle snorted. "I guess that means you do like it."

"I can't believe you got me a piano."

"Do you have any idea what I had to go through to pull this off? I am the best friend ever. I had to budget for it and figure out a place for it to go and arrange for it to be delivered — on Christmas morning no less — and ... Well, you know, if we're going to be big-time Broadway musical writers, you're gonna need a piano at home."

Jimmy grinned and let him go, trying to recover his composition. "And I thought you were getting laid."

Kyle smiled back. "Only in my dreams."

"The only problem is," Jimmy said, feigning disappointment, "Your present's gonna be such a letdown now."

"My present? You got me a present? Gimme gimme!"

He pretended to sigh, picked up the wrapped book, and handed it over. Kyle was, in fact, the best friend ever, so he deserved to receive his present, and if it turned out to have been a terrible idea that was totally on Jimmy; at least Kyle would know he'd tried.

Kyle ripped off the wrapping paper eagerly. It took him a moment to orient the book and then to process the contents, but once he had ...

The expression on his face was everything Jimmy could have hoped for.

Jimmy had hit up every theater he could in the time he had. If they had a show running, he'd gotten a playbill or program and an autograph from whoever was available, each time with the same message: "Kyle Bishop, Broadway is waiting for you". For the theaters without a show, he'd taken photographs of the blank marquee or — if they let him inside — the empty stage, and penned the same message onto the picture.

"This is incredible," Kyle said at last, his voice catching.

Jimmy shrugged, not sure what to say. It was true. One day Kyle's name was going to be plastered on the Great White Way. He had no doubt of that.

"Let's make a pact," Kyle said. "Ten years from now we're gonna be famous, Tony-winning writers. And we'll still be best friends. We'll be ... we'll be the next Houston and Levitt."

"Except with Tonys."

"Exactly."

"It's a deal." Jimmy paused, then said, "Merry Christmas, Kyle."

Kyle put the book down and hugged him again. "Merry Christmas, Jimmy."

**Author's Note:**

> The relevant Kirsty lyric is, of course, "you promised me Broadway was waiting for me".
> 
> Happy Yuletide!


End file.
